KVM "fake DAX" device flushing

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We are sharing initial project proposal for 
'KVM "fake DAX" device flushing' project for feedback. 
Got the idea during discussion with 'Rik van Riel'. 

Also, request answers to 'Questions' section.

Abstract : 
----------
Project idea is to use fake persistent memory with direct 
access(DAX) in virtual machines. Overall goal of project 
is to increase the number of virtual machines that can be 
run on a physical machine, in order to increase the density 
of customer virtual machines.

The idea is to avoid the guest page cache, and minimize the 
memory footprint of virtual machines. By presenting a disk 
image as a nvdimm direct access (DAX) memory region in a 
virtual machine, the guest OS can avoid using page cache 
memory for most file accesses.

Problem Statement :
------------------
* Guest uses page cache in memory to process fast requests 
  for disk read/write. This results in big memory footprint 
  of guests without host knowing much details of the guest 
  memory. 

* If guests use direct access(DAX) with fake persistent 
  storage, the host manages the page cache for guests, 
  allowing the host to easily reclaim/evict less frequently 
  used page cache pages without requiring guest cooperation, 
  like ballooning would.

* Host manages guest cache as ‘mmaped’ disk image area in 
  qemu address space. This region is passed to guest as fake 
  persistent memory range. We need a new flushing interface 
  to flush this cache to secondary storage to persist guest 
  writes.

* New asynchronous flushing interface will allow guests to 
  cause the host flush the dirty data to backup storage file. 
  Systems with pmem storage make use of CLFLUSH instruction 
  to flush single cache line to persistent storage and it 
  takes care of flushing. With fake persistent storage in 
  guest we cannot depend on CLFLUSH instruction to flush entire 
  dirty cache to backing storage. Even If we trap and emulate 
  CLFLUSH instruction guest vCPU has to wait till we flush all 
  the dirty memory. Instead of this we need to implement a new 
  asynchronous guest flushing interface, which allows the guest 
  to specify a larger range to be flushed at once, and allows 
  the vCPU to run something else while the data is being synced 
  to disk. 

* New flushing interface will consists of a para virt driver to 
  new fake nvdimm like device which will process guest flushing
  requests like fsync/msync etc instead of pmem library calls 
  like clflush. The corresponding device at host side will be 
  responsible for flushing requests for guest dirty pages. 
  Guest can put current task in sleep and vCPU can run any other 
  task while host side flushing of guests pages is in progress.

Host controlled fake nvdimm DAX to avoid guest page cache :
-------------------------------------------------------------
* Bypass guest page cache by using a fake persistent storage 
  like nvdimm & DAX. Guest Read/Write is directly done on 
  fake persistent storage without involving guest kernel for 
  caching data.

* Fake nvdimm device passed to guest is backed by a regular 
  file in host stored in secondary storage.

* Qemu has implementation of fake NVDIMM/DAX device. Use this 
  capability of passing regular host file(disk) as nvdimm device 
  to guest.

* Nvdimm with DAX works for ext4/xfs filesystem. Supported 
  filesystem should be DAX compatible. 

* As we are using guest disk as fake DAX/NVDIMM device, we 
  need a mechanism for persistence of data backed on regular 
  host storage file.

* For live migration use case, if host side backing file is 
  shared storage, we need to flush the page cache for the disk 
  image at the destination (new fadvise interface, FADV_INVALIDATE_CACHE?) 
  before starting execution of the guest on the destination host.

Design :
---------
* In order to not have page cache inside the guest, qemu would:

 1) mmap the guest's disk image and present that disk image to 
    the guest as a persistent memory range.

 2) Present information to the guest telling it that the persistent 
    memory range is not physical persistent memory.

 3) Present an additional paravirt device alongside the persistent 
    memory range, that can be used to sync (ranges of) data to disk.

* Guest would use the disk image mostly like a persistent memory 
  device, with two exceptions:

  1) It would not tell userspace that the files on that device are 
     persistent memory. This is  done so userspace knows to call 
     fsync/msync, instead of the pmem clflush library call.

  2) When userspace calls fsync/msync on files on the fake persistent 
     memory device, issue a request through the paravirt device that 
     causes the host to flush the device back end.

* Guest uses fake persistent storage data updates can be still in 
  qemu memory. We need a way to flush cached data in host to backed 
  secondary storage.

* Once the guest receives a completion event from the host, it will 
  allow userspace programs that were waiting on the fsync/msync to 
  continue running.

* Host is responsible for paging in pages in host backing area for 
  guest persistent memory as they are accessed by the guest, and 
  for evicting pages as host memory fills up.

Questions :
-----------
* What should the flushing interface between guest and host look 
  like?

* Any suggestions to hook the IO caching code with KVM/Qemu or 
  thoughts on how we should do it? 

* Thinking of implementing a guest para virt driver which will send 
  guest requests to Qemu to flush data to disk. Not sure at this 
  point how to tell userspace to work on this device as any regular
  device without considering it as persistent device. Any suggestions
  on this?

* Not thought yet about ballooning impact. But feel this solution 
  could be better than ballooning in long term? As we will be 
  managing all guests cache from host side.

* Not sure this solution works for ARM and other architectures and 
  Windows? 



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